As I write this entry Linton is winging her way into Hong Kong for a five day visit with cousin Sheila. The boys and I are "baching it" back in Melbourne so there will be a lot of tv dinners, hanging out in our boxers, and watching of sports on the telly. But back to our last trip.
The flight from Sydney to Alice Springs is about 3 hours and no sooner had we reached our cruising altitude and flown over the Blue Mountains than we began to see the outback and the reason for its nickname as the Red Centre. I never realized how such a dry place can be so beautiful. I spent a lot of time at the window snapping pictures furiously. I love the one picture here where you see the little white cloud and directly below it is its little black shadow. It was the only cloud for miles. I was also surprised at the amount of water there is in the outback. We were arriving after an abnormally wet few weeks and from the air many rivers seemed full and flowing.
We arrived in Alice Springs with a two hour lay over before our 50 minute flight to Ayers Rock so we grabbed some lunch and had a good laugh at Alex who demanded to talk to a grandparent right there and then and spent the next 20 minutes telling Nannie everything under the sun. I've never seen him so animated on the phone.
Once we were back in the air it seemed like only minutes before we were descending again and Uluru came into sight. It was quite a moment. Personally, I never thought I would ever see it in person and to realize that we had manged to get ourselves out to what I have always thought of as a very remote part of the world was quite cool. In point of fact the area is quite developed and boasts several resort style and five star accommodations. Regardless, I was proud that we had made the effort to get here and see a place that many Australians told us they had never seen.
Our hotel, The Desert Gardens, was a full-fledged 4.5 star hotel with everything you could ever want. Most importantly as far as the boys were concerned there was quite a good pool in the heart of the compound and we had barely turned on the lights in our room before we were back out the door and into the pool for a good soak. At this time of year Ayers Rock can be 40 degrees and we had seen some forecasts before we left Melbourne that were edging up that way. Thankfully, while we were there, I don't think we had anything over 35. It was hot but as they say it was hot without that life-draining humidity so if you can find shade it is quite bearable.
We had booked a sunrise tour of Uluru for the following morning and we had to get up at 4:30am so we relaxed by the pool and in our room for the balance of this day. Dinner was special though as we celebrated Linton's birthday in the Arunguli Grill Restaurant and even got a candle onto her piece of creme brule. The 40's have been pretty good to Lint so far as 40 found us in Disney World and 41 at Ayer's Rock. I look forward to where we might be for 42!
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